{"id":4459,"date":"2026-09-20T09:26:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/?p=4459"},"modified":"2026-09-20T09:26:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:26:03","slug":"a-waltz-of-sinister-import-by-stephanie-burgis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/?p=4459","title":{"rendered":"A Waltz of Sinister Import, by Stephanie Burgis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Review copy provided by the author, who is a dear friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think I get to say &#8220;triumphant conclusion&#8221; again! I love to say &#8220;triumphant conclusion.&#8221; If you&#8217;re less fond of that phrase, okay, okay, this is the <em>third book<\/em> in the Lord and Lady Riven series, and I would not recommend starting here, because much of what makes the characters&#8217; actions work, much of the interest and impact, is contextual from previous stories. It&#8217;s that it&#8217;s not a sitcom plot where the characters reset every time, they&#8217;re actually learning how to be with each other and with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which is a thing I really love about this series: it doesn&#8217;t stop at &#8220;these people are in love,&#8221; which is great because <em>things don&#8217;t stop there<\/em>. Not only fantasy plot things, but relationship things. We will keep running into different magical creatures and artefacts, sure, because that&#8217;s how this world is (and it&#8217;s a lovely fantastical reflection of how <em>this<\/em> world is, rich and diverse), but also we will keep developing as people, and figuring out how to have our marriage reflect that. I particularly loved that being concerned with and attentive to the needs of vampires did not magically make Margaret fully aware of the needs of the new person she meets. It&#8217;s an aspect of disability justice that I don&#8217;t see often enough in fantasy metaphor, and it was wonderful here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also I have a few friends I&#8217;d have wanted to huddle under an invisibility cloak with for shenanigans shortly after meeting them. Yes, absolutely. Some people immediately strike you that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Review copy provided by the author, who is a dear friend. I think I get to say &#8220;triumphant conclusion&#8221; again! I love to say &#8220;triumphant conclusion.&#8221; If you&#8217;re less fond of that phrase, okay, okay, this is the third book in the Lord and Lady Riven series, and I would not recommend starting here, because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-4459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookses-precious"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4460,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4459\/revisions\/4460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}